It took centuries of intellectual, philosophical development to achieve political freedom. It was a long struggle, stretching from Aristotle to John Locke to the Founding Fathers. The system they established was not based on unlimited majority rule, but on its opposite: on individual rights, which were not to be alienated by majority vote or minority plotting. The individual was not left at the mercy of his neighbors or his leaders: the Constitutional system of checks and balances was scientifically devised to protect him from both. This was the great American achievement—and if concern for the actual welfare of other nations were our present leaders’ motive, this is what we should have been teaching the world. Ayn Rand
Now, not so much. Last week, Obama attacked ‘those who slander the Prophet of Islam’ at the UN General Assembly. The "free press" ignored it, but it was a seismic historical moment. And now the world's largest Islamic supremacist workd body, the OIC, is calling for worldwide blasphemy laws.
The OIC is one of the largest intergovernmental organizations in the world. It encompasses 56 Muslim states plus the Palestinian Authority. Spread over four continents, it claims to speak in the name of the ummah (the universal Muslim community), which numbers about 1.3 billion. The OIC’s mission is to unite all Muslims worldwide by rooting them in the Koran and the Sunnah — the core of traditional Islamic civilization and values. It aims at strengthening solidarity and cooperation among all its members, in order to protect the interests of Muslims everywhere and to galvanize the ummah into a unified body. The OIC is a unique organization — one that has no equivalent in the world. It unites the religious, economic, military, and political strength of 56 states.
Ten years ago, twenty, thirty .... this would have been unheard of, laughed at (and rightly so) from the hallowed halls of the White House to the dirt roads of the corn belt. Now it is being debated and considered. How far we have fallen from the once-great, enlightened ideal of the individual's freedom from physical compulsion.
The OIC has massive funding from oil sources, which it lavishly spends on the Western media and academia and in countless “dialogues.” It influences Western policy, laws, and even textbooks through pressures brought by Muslim immigrants and by the Western nations’ own leftist parties.
The OIC is nothing less than a “would-be, universal caliphate.” It might look different from the caliphates of the Ottomans, Fatimids, and Abbasids. It might resemble, instead, a thoroughly modern trans-national bureaucracy. But, already, the OIC exercises significant power through the United Nations, and through the European Union, which has been eager to accommodate the OIC while simultaneously endowing the U.N. with increasing authority for global governance.(Bat Ye'or)
It is not hard to know how Obama's special envoy to the OIC is advising him. Obama's special envoy to the OIC, Rashad Hussain, is a hafiz. A hafiz is a devout Muslim who has committed the Koran to memory. This impresses Obama enormously; he often brags about it.....
Will America submit gently to the most radical and extreme ideology on the planet? I think not. Freedom of speech is the line in the sand. This is the stuff of civil war. And free men will fight to the death for our freedoms and unalienable human rights.
UNITED NATIONS — The head of a leading Islamic organization Saturday called for a global ban on offending the character of the Prophet Muhammad, saying that it should be equated with hate speech.
Such a ban would demonstrate how an interconnected world respected different cultural sensitivities, said Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, secretary general of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation in an interview with The Associated Press.
"If the Western world fails to understand the sensitivity of the Muslim world, then we are in trouble," Ihsanoglu said. Such provocations pose "a threat to international peace and security and the sanctity of life."
Ihsanoglu's remarks follow protests that erupted in Muslim countries after a low-budget film, "Innocence of Muslims," produced by a U.S. citizen denigrated the Prophet Muhammad by portraying Islam's holiest figure as a fraud, womanizer and child molester.
Some two dozen demonstrators were killed in protests that attacked symbols of U.S. and the West, including diplomatic compounds. The U.S. Ambassador to Libya and three of his colleagues were killed in an attack on their compound in the eastern city of Benghazi during the same time.
Many of the protests were led or provoked by hardline puritan Muslims, who form small but growing minorities throughout the Islamic world.
Ihsanoglu, whose organization represents 57 Muslim-majority countries, said they respect the right of freedom of expression, but believed a line had to be drawn at incitement.
"We are not saying stop free speech. We are staying stop hate speech," Ihsanoglu said.
While European leaders and U.S. President Barack Obama have sharply condemned the film, they also have defended the importance of free speech even if it allows extremists to broadcast offensive views.
Still, it appeared difficult to see how such a provision proposed by Ihsanoglu could ever work – even if it was agreed to – because of the easy access to social media websites on the Internet that can be used to spread offensive material. Excerpts from "Innocence of Muslims" were posted on YouTube.
Ihsanoglu said his call for a ban did not imply he was rewarding violent protesters, whom he sharply condemned.
Instead, he said such a ban would show a global sensitivity to the veneration which 1.5 billion Muslims have for the Prophet Muhammad. He said he was not calling for a ban on criticizing Islam, but specifically, on denigrating its founding prophet.
"You have to see that there is a provocation. You should understand the psychology of people who revere their prophet and don't want people to insult him," he said.
Ihsanoglu's call also echoed the views of other moderate Muslim scholars and leaders, who have urged the U.N. and international bodies to define global standards on religious expression and to help prevent incitement – particularly Islamaphobia.
